After Not Receiving A Diagnosis For Illness, 3-Year-Old With Cerebral Palsy Discovers She's Sick From A Penny

As soon as her three-year-old daughter Aliya Claspbell, who has cerebral palsy, began vomiting, her mom, Crystal, thought it was probably because she had accidentally swallowed a penny a few days before. Four days later though, ER doctors at an Evansville hospital still couldn't give her daughter a definite diagnosis.

"They did an ultrasound of her belly, which showed nothing wrong with it, so they wanted to do an upper GI [series]," Crystal told KFVS-12. "But because she wouldn't swallow the barium because she couldn't keep anything down, they couldn't do it."

Most Popular

By this time, Crystal started feeling understandably nervous, scared, and frustrated with the lack of answers she was receiving. She decided to transfer her daughter to Peyton Manning Children's Hospital in Indianapolis to see if doctors there could figure out the problem. After one chest x-ray test, doctors told Crystal that it was, as she suspected, the penny that was causing her to feel so sick. Turns out, it had gotten lodged into Aliya's esophagus and had to be surgically removed.

"Because of the penny being lodged in there that whole time, it was left narrowing of the esophagus [and] she might have to have another surgery to stretch it out," Crystal explained.

Fortunately, Crystal says her daughter is doing better and is slowly recovering and regaining her strength back.

"She's now on inhalers and medication to help smooth out the esophagus."